Seems like citizens of Montenegro will not be exempted from paying entry tickets to national parks, as requested by the Liberal party. However, the preparation of the decision on the amendments to the fees is under way. As representatives of National parks said, this decision will enable residents and foreign citizens to buy annual entry ticket to all parks under very favorable conditions.
Now the price of the entry ticket amounts: €1 – NP Prokletije, €2 for the NP Lovćen, €3 for NP Durmitor and NP Biogradska gora whereas the entry ticket to the NP Skadar lake costs €4.
Member of Liberal party, Mr Andrija Popović, asked the Government to abolish the entry tickets charge for Montenegrin citizens.
Directors of NP, Mr Elvir Klica, said for Pobjeda that the amendments to the decision on fees were in the preparation phase. He reminded that price of entry tickets had been the same for ten years. He added that, according to the EU directives, it is not allowed to make any differences between domestic and international visitors, when it comes to the price of entry tickets.
According to the law, all visitors, except fort hose who live in the area of the national park, or own some real estate within that area, are obliged to pay the entry.
Amount of fees for entering national parks was defined by decision approved by the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism.
Mr Klica explains that charging entry tickets represents one of the most important financial mechanisms in the majority of protected spaces in the world. The funds collected this way are used for sustainable development projects, programs of the protection of flora and fauna and improvement of the overall ecosystem at our national parks.
Project manager of the association „Park Dinarides – network of protected areas“, Ms Jelena Marojević Galić, thinks that abolition of entry tickets referring to domestic citizens is possible only if the country assists National parks in the financial sense. In the financing protected areas theory, there are three systems.
“The first system is when the country covers all the costs of the protection and development in which case there is no an entry ticket to the protected area. Second, when protected areas are financed by the resources they use, mostly through the exploitation of forest ecosystems, economic hunting of huge mammals or use of mineral raw materials. In the countries where national parks are financed this way, entry tickets do not exist or they are very affordable“, explains Ms Marojević-Galić.
The third system entails developed tourist infrastructure and services and protection of parks is mostly financed by entry tickets.
Last year national parks in Montenegro earned a total of €1.366.334 from charging entry tickets.
